We welcome Dr. Diane Ravitch to our blog. Dr. Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor under Education Secretary Lamar Alexander’s leadership in the early 1990s. Her latest book, Reign of Error, is a New York Times bestseller.

1. Tennessee leaders have proposed linking teacher pay to value-added scores. Does this practice hold promise or peril for students and teachers?

Doing this has no basis in research or experience. It has failed wherever it was tried. It causes teaching to the test, which is unprofessional. 70% of teachers do not teach tested subjects, so either the state will spend millions to create new tests for every subject or teachers will be evaluated by the scores of students they never taught. Teachers in affluent districts will get high ratings. Teachers of English learners, of students with disabilities, of the gifted will get low ratings. This methodology doesn’t work. It appeals because it is simplistic. But it is ineffective at identifying the best and worst teachers. It shows who you taught.

2. Some legislators are proposing a voucher system for Tennessee students. What has been learned about the effectiveness and impact of voucher systems in other areas?

Vouchers have failed wherever they were tried. Milwaukee has had vouchers since 1990. Voucher students get the same scores as students in public schools. Meanwhile, on federal tests, Milwaukee is one of the lowest performing cities in the nation. Why should taxpayers pay for children to attend religious schools? Voters have never approved vouchers, not in any state. They were decisively rejected last fall by the voters of Florida.

3. Tennessee consistently ranks near the bottom of all states on tests like NAEP and ACT. What’s the best way for policy makers to change this?

Read my latest book. Early childhood education works. Health clinics for every school work. The arts raises student motivation to attend school. After school programs and summer programs work. Raising standards for entering teachers works. Set high standards for all educators, including the state commissioner, who has never been a principal or a superintendent and lacks the qualifications to be state commissioner.

4.Typically, state departments of education employ people with a variety of backgrounds; some have teaching experience, but others come from academic and policy backgrounds. What is your take on having many Teach for America corps members moving into state policy positions?

Teach for America demeans the teaching profession by perpetrating the myth that teachers are qualified with only five weeks of training. Who would go to a doctor or lawyer with only five weeks training? Or fly in a jet whose pilot had five weeks training? TFA is destroying professionalism.

5. You are a frequent critic of Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman. What are the good and bad things that Commissioner Huffman has done since taking the job?

He gives the erroneous impression that a state commissioner need have no administrative experience. He lacks the basic qualifications for the job. He has punished the city of Nashville’s children by withholding $3.4 million, punishing the board for not granting a charter that he favored. He does not respect local control. He pushes privatization through charters and vouchers. He has no ideas that are constructive for public education, which is an essential democratic institution. He has demoralized teachers. If I think of something good he has done, I will let you know.

6. It’s perhaps not-so-common knowledge that legendary union leader Albert Shanker was an early fan of the charter school concept, though his vision was of teacher-run schools authorized by a school district, in contrast to most modern charter schools. What was it that Shanker liked about the concept, and are there kernels of practice and/or organization that you like in the charter universe?

Shanker advocated for charters that sought out the weakest students, not the best ones. He thought that charters should be approved by their union and their local district.

Whatever they learned about how to help dropouts would be shared with the public schools.

This is a very different vision from charters today, which boast of their high scores, and often push out the weakest students who might pull down their scores.

7. The recession starting in 2008 hit states and local governments hard, and continuing debates in Washington leading to stalemated battles certainly don’t help the funding situation for districts and schools. Putting aside the argument of whether states and local governments have funded schools, anti-poverty campaigns, healthcare, etc. sufficiently, what strategies do you find most promising that don’t require new funding? Are there such strategies?

Better schools require adequate funding.

8. The education debate has lately taken an outsized role in public discourse, and includes many efforts, on both sides, to use coordinated messaging, public relations efforts, and branding efforts. The “Reform” movement, writ large, has an easily-recited list of policies associated with it, including vouchers, charter schools, pay-for-performance, teacher evaluations using student testing data, and ending seniority rules. For those on the opposite side, what are the list of marquee policies to point to? What’s the alternative policy agenda?

Read my book. A thriving public school system that meets the needs of children. No privatization. No high-stakes testing. Money for arts and reduced class size, not for consultants, corporations and the testing industry.

9. In a recent interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, you talked about how our education system is actually a lot better than people make it out to be. Can you explain your views on this topic?

Read my book.

Test scores for whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians are at their highest point in history.

Graduation rates at their highest point in history.

Dropout rates at lowest point in history.

These are 40-year trends.

Where scores are low, there is poverty and racial segregation.

None of the “reformer” ideas address the Root causes of low academic performance.

10. You have recently released a book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. Can you tell us why you wrote this book? How is it different than your previous book?

I explain in the book. One, to give realistic solutions that would improve schools and society. Two, to demonstrate using graphs from the US Dept of Education website that the reformy claims of failure are untrue. Our American public schools do a great job, but they cannot overcome poverty without changes in our social and economic structures.

For more on Tennessee education politics and policy, follow us @TNEdReport.

Boys Prep, an embattled Nashville charter school that is already facing threats of closure, is now facing more problems. Tennessee Education Report has confirmed that the principal for Boys Prep has been removed from his position and asked not to return until further notice. Rev. Keith Jackson, a board member for Boys Prep, issued this statement after contacted about rumblings we were hearing about the school:

I will say that there are some serious concerns that are still being investigated. He is not at the school and has been advised not to return until further notice. There is a Board of Directors meeting scheduled for Oct. 24, at which time these issues will be discussed and any decisions will be made at that time.

UPDATE: Metro Nashville Public Schools released the following statement:

We have been in contact with the leadership at Boys Prep and understand they have taken action. We will stay in close contact to monitor the situation as it develops. Any further inquiries should be directed to Boys Prep.

For more on Tennessee education politics and policy, follow us @TNEdReport

While we tend to be Nashville-centric in many of our posts – either coverage of MNPS or state policy happenings in Nashville, Bluff City Ed offers an interesting look into the transformation of public schools in Memphis.

Now, back in Nashville, it seems the Commissioner of Education will now also be a blogger. Maybe this is how he intends to improve communication with all those Superintendents who aren’t happy with his leadership style.

Finally, over in Sumner County, Fox 17 has an interesting take on what turned out to be a fairly reasonable solution to a sticky tax problem.

Valerie Strauss has an interesting piece over at the Washington Post dealing with Value-Added Modeling. More specifically, the post analyzes what can be learned from 20 years of the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) implemented as a result of the Education Improvement Act — the Act that created the Basic Education Program (Tennessee’s school funding formula, also known as BEP).

The promise of Value-Added Assessment was that we could learn a lot about which schools were working and which weren’t. We could learn a lot about kids and how they were progressing. We could even learn about teachers and how they were doing with all their students and with specific groups of students. With all this information, Tennessee would intervene and take action that would move schools forward.

Unfortunately, that promise has not been delivered. At all.

Here, I highlight the key takeaways from the Strauss piece. Tennessee parents and policymakers should take note – TVAAS is taking up tax dollars and impacting teacher evaluations and it doesn’t really work all that well.

1. Using TVAAS masked persistently low proficiency rates.

The Tennessee value-added assessment model basically identified the schools that were already making required annual proficiency targets, but it failed to distinguish between schools with rising or declining proficiency scores.

In short, the Sanders Model did little to address the essential unfairness perpetuated by NCLB proficiency requirements, which insisted that those student further behind and with fewer resources than those in economically privileged schools had to work harder to reach the same proficiency point. More importantly, there was no evidence that the Sanders version of value-added testing did anything to help or even predict the future outcomes for those furthest behind.

2. TVAAS is unstable and inappropriate for high-stakes decisions — like hiring and firing teachers, renewing licenses, or determining pay.

3. Continued use of TVAAS as an indicator of “success” leaves the most vulnerable students further and further behind.

In a 2009 Carnegie-funded report, Charles Barone points out that focus on value-added gains, or growth in test scores, may downplay the need for interventions to address low proficiency rates: “Due to the projection toward proficiency being recalculated annually [in the TVAAS model], there is not necessarily a significant progression, over time toward proficiency . . . causing a delay of needed intervention at appropriate developmental times” (p. 8). So while showing academic progress, gain scores or growth scores easily mask the fact that minority and poor children are far below their well-heeled peers in becoming intellectually prepared for life and careers. And in masking the actual academic progress of the poor and minority students, the state (and the nation) is let off the hook for maintaining and supporting an adequate and equally accessible system of public education for all students. At the same time, politicians and ideologues can celebrate higher “progress rates” for poor and minority students who are, in fact, left further and further behind.

4. Tennessee has actually lost ground in terms of student achievement relative to other states since the implementation of TVAAS.

Tennessee received a D on K-12 achievement when compared to other states based on NAEP achievement levels and gains, poverty gaps, graduation rates, and Advanced Placement test scores (Quality Counts 2011, p. 46). Educational progress made in other states on NAEP [from 1992 to 2011] lowered Tennessee’s rankings:

While other states are making gains, Tennessee has remained stagnant or lost ground since 1992 — despite an increasingly heavy use of TVAAS data.

So, if TVAAS isn’t helping kids, it must be because Tennessee hasn’t been using it right, right? Wrong. While education policy makers in Tennessee continue to push the use of TVAAS for items such as teacher evaluation, teacher pay, and teacher license renewal, there is little evidence that value-added data effectively differentiates between the most and least effective teachers.

In fact, this analysis demonstrates that the difference between a value-added identified “great” teacher and a value-added identified “average” teacher is about $300 in earnings per year per student. So, not that much at all. Statistically speaking, we’d call that insignificant. That’s not to say that teachers don’t impact students. It IS to say that TVAAS data tells us very little about HOW teachers impact students.

Surprisingly, Tennessee has spent roughly $326 million on TVAAS and attendant assessment over the past 20 years. That’s $16 million a year on a system that is not yielding much useful information. Instead, TVAAS data has been used to mask a persistent performance gap between middle to upper income students and their lower-income peers. Overall student achievement in Tennessee remains stagnant (which means we’re falling behind our neighboring states) while politicians and policy makers tout TVAAS-approved gains as a sure sign of progress.

In spite of mounting evidence contradicting the utility of TVAAS, Commissioner Huffman and Governor Haslam announced last week they want to “improve” Tennessee teacher salaries along the lines of merit — and in their minds, TVAAS gains are a key determinant of teacher merit.

Perhaps 2014 will at least produce questions from the General Assembly about the state’s investment in an assessment system that has over 20 years yielded incredibly disappointing results.

For more on Tennessee education politics and policy, follow us @TNEdReport

Professional Educators of Tennessee launched a new online journal today and it contains a wide-ranging interview with Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman. The full interview can be viewed here.

I’ve got some excerpts and analysis below.

PET: You started in your post about 3 or 4 months into Governor Haslam’s term, after Tennessee was already several months into the Race to the Top (RTTT) Grant Award and after the new evaluation system was put in place. Yet, many people seem to tie you to the changes in teacher evaluation which was actually included in the 2010 RTTT Application. Is that fair?

Huffman: Yes and no. No in the sense that we committed to implement the system (including 50% student achievement for all teachers) through the First to the Top legislation and then through the grant. My first week on the job, the advisory committee (TEAC) completed its work which included the selection of the TEAM rubric and the format for the observations, so that was all done by the time I came, and it isn’t accurate to say that I created it.

What set us apart from other states, though, is that we didn’t back down. Other states committed to do evaluation too, and many delayed by a year or two, or kicked the can even farther down the road, and we stayed the course. If that means that I am tied to the evaluation system, I accept that, because I think the system has made instruction better and helped kids learn more. One of the things I think people miss in the evaluation discussion is that the real value is not in anything punitive: it is in ensuring that real feedback and conversations about instruction happen across the state with a common language. And I think that has happened.

What’s missing, in my view, is the attendant professional development and early career support. Early career teachers need mentoring and support. Teach for America, where Huffman got his start, places a heavy emphasis on targeted coaching and mentoring in the first two years. Even if the evaluation process is on balance a good one (and there’s debate about that), it’s difficult to see how it improves instruction significantly without supports and targeted professional development being provided to teachers.

PET: What changes do we need to make in teacher evaluations? And what should the state have done differently in retrospect?

Huffman: We made a bunch of changes after the first year, which I think made the system better and certainly made educators feel the system was better in the second year. I think we have to keep looking each year at how to improve it. A couple of things over the long haul that I think we need to keep looking at: 1) adjusting language each year on the rubric so that it effectively matches the observations with the standards teachers are teaching. I think we have done a little of this but we have to keep looking; 2) the whole “15% measure” for achievement still doesn’t seem to be going very well. Many teachers and schools don’t feel like it accurately reflects teachers’ impact, so I want to keep looking at this.

In retrospect, I think the biggest piece missing was training and communication for teachers well in advance of the rollout. I think some teachers got strong communication from local schools and districts and others did not, and the communication piece was insufficient from the state. A good example of that was the initial “planning” strand. Some teachers spent hours and hours and wrote 20-page lesson plan documents, which was never the intent. Better communication way back in early 2011 would have made a big difference.

The evaluation process is an ever-changing one — and that’s frustrating for teachers. Every few months, it seems, something new is decided or added or taken away from the evaluation process. No one objects to a sound evaluation of their performance. What’s problematic is the implementation. Further, the 15% measure for achievement is becoming more, not less problematic. In some systems, teachers are forced to choose an “Annual Measurable Objective” connected to English/Language Arts or Math. Rather than owning their own students (in the case of AP teachers, for example) teachers are sometimes tied to students they’ve never taught. The State Board document on the 15% provides a number of choices and ample flexibility. Revisiting this issue with the input of teachers from across the state would be a welcome policy change.

PET: In your opinion, what are the top three current challenges facing education in Tennessee?

Huffman: This is a tough one. 1) Helping students with disabilities reach their potential. We have a huge gap in achievement and we are really focused on this at the state level right now. 2) Early grades reading. We heard all summer from teachers that they need and want more support for teaching reading and for intervening with students who are far behind their peers. We are offering a course through our regional CORE offices to thousands of teachers on reading instruction, and I hope it will help. 3) Integrating all of the changes. We have done a lot in the last few years, and we now have new assessments coming. Our focus is not on more change – it is on how to manage all of the change effectively.
I’m very bullish on our ability to navigate these challenges though.

One clear way to improve early grades reading is by ensuring access to high quality Pre-K programs. Both the Comptroller’s study and the Vanderbilt study of Pre-K indicate its ability to help improve reading in early grades. Governor Haslam, however, has indicated he’s not in favor of expanding a program that is proven to work to address what the Commissioner of Education identifies as a top priority for our state. PET: Any final thoughts you would like to share with Tennessee educators?

Huffman: I am deeply grateful for your service. Every time I visit a school, I am struck by the professionalism and commitment of our educators, and our students are lucky to have you.

I’m sure it’s nice for educators to hear those words. But, you can’t buy groceries with gratitude. So far, there hasn’t been a real commitment to improving the pay and support for the educators the Commissioner identifies as both highly professional and deeply committed. We heard a lot about how important teachers were to the gains noted on this year’s TCAP’s. What hasn’t been heard is how compensation and support will be improved to ensure Tennessee is attracting and keeping strong educators. To be clear, it’s not just better pay, but more support and more resources that teachers need.

EDIT: Today (10/3/13) at 3:00 PM Central Time Haslam and Huffman announced a goal to make Tennessee the “fastest improving state when it comes to teacher salaries.”

More Huffman: “Too often we try to use gratitude as a substitution for compensation.” — is he reading as I write?

And he notes, “Tennessee ranks in the bottom 10 in terms of teacher compensation.”

It’s not clear what that means, exactly, but it should mean more than this.

And then, House Democratic Leader Craig Fitzhugh offers this response:

“Teachers in this state are overworked, underpaid, and deserve to be treated as professionals.

However, after listening to teachers across the state, we are increasingly convinced that Commissioner Huffman’s unproven, unreliable testing methods as a basis for teacher pay are hurting our public education system.

“….Basing teacher pay on scores, especially the scores of students they never teach, is going to further strain the system, lower morale, and detract from the progress we have made in Tennessee.”

We had the great opportunity to interview Dr. Jesse Register, the Director of Schools for Metro Nashville Public Schools. We hope you enjoy the interview.

1) Is MNPS moving towards school-based budgeting and budgetary control? If so, what’s the timeline? What elements of the budget will schools be free to spend as they wish? What elements will be outside a school’s purview?

Yes. We currently have 15 schools in a pilot program for school-based budgeting. We expect to have 50-60 schools in the program next school year, with a goal of going district-wide by 2015-16.

Schools in our pilot group get an average of around $6,300 per student on their school budgets. The rest of the per-pupil money goes to central services like transportation, food, human capital, textbooks, building services, etc. Of that $6,300, principals have direct control over 92%. Those numbers are expected to go up every year.

We’ve also seen a big, big increase in the amount of Title I money going directly to schools – rising from 49% two years ago to 85% today.

And of course we are looking at a weighted student funding formula that would funnel resources to schools more equitably, based on the kinds of students they serve. That could mean different levels of funding for English learners, exceptional education, gifted or others who might need more dedicated resources.

2) Is MNPS moving towards school-based hiring? Same questions as above — how fast, what are the parameters, etc.?

As you know, the entire Human Capital department was completely restructured. We’re looking at them as a strategy and support system more than a group that does hiring and firing.

So principals select and interview their own candidates right now. That’s district-wide. They assess the needs for teachers in their schools, select candidates from the available pool, interview them and recommend them for hire.

I say “recommend them for hire” because Human Capital needs to run background checks and actually process the hire, but principals are selecting teachers for their schools based on their specific needs.

That means we are greatly reducing the number of forced transfers. In fact, we hope to eliminate them entirely. That means principals can hire teachers, but they also have to deal with their problems and weaknesses. We don’t want inadequate performers just transferred from school to school.

The autonomy principals have also comes with accountability, and that includes staffing.

3) Will we see any more movement/changes to the salary structure?

We have a strategic compensation committee that is working on developing recommendations that link part of teacher compensation to performance. We expect those recommendations to be ready in before winter break. Our goal is to implement this plan for the 2014-15 school year. We expect to reward high-performing teachers while also continuing to pay teachers for additional education from quality programs – if it contributes to their work.

4) Given the lengthy waitlists for schools like Hume-Fogg, Meigs, and MLK, why hasn’t MNPS opened more academic magnet schools? Understanding that other non-academic magnets (such as Rose Park, East Lit and Nashville School of the Arts) exist, why has MNPS not moved to meet that demand?

A quarter of our students attend a school by choice rather than by geography. That’s an important statistic for people to understand because it represents the diversity of attractive programs in our district, not just academic magnet schools.

Yes, the academic magnets have terrific track records and reputations. We are extremely proud of Hume-Fogg, MLK, Meigs and all of their feeder schools. But our thematic magnets and improving zoned schools can offer strong, challenging academics that meet every student’s needs.

The question we must face in Nashville is this: do we want to take our highest achieving students out of neighborhood schools and separate them into just a few academic magnets? I believe that is counterproductive. Instead let’s build the capacity in our zoned schools to challenge the high achievers while also serving the broad spectrum of all our students.

We want to improve the quality of all our schools, and we are making progress in doing that. Academically talented students can get a great education at any of our schools. If you look at our high schools, you see that in action. We have advanced academic tracks in each of our zoned high schools: Cambridge, International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement, STEM courses, Vanderbilt Scientists in the Classroom and more. No matter where you live in Nashville, you can attend a school that challenges you and gives you the education you deserve.

5) Is MNPS planning implementation of a comprehensive new teacher induction program that includes dedicated mentors?

We are in discussions for that right now, but it is very early in the process. It will all come down to funding.

There is a lot of research touting the positive impact of high-quality teacher mentors on student achievement. This year we are finishing up a three-year mentor-training program with Trevecca where teachers are moved into high-priority schools to act as teacher mentors. This will be a great pool of talent to pull from to get our mentor program started if it takes off.

6) Memphis is moving forward with additional Pre-K classrooms despite a stop in state dollars for expansion. Will MNPS move ahead with a Pre-K expansion plan?

I believe strongly in universal pre-K. I intend to pursue increased funding at the state and local levels. It is long-term the best strategy for eliminating achievement gaps between disadvantaged children and those who are not.

7) How would you describe the relationship between MNPS and the TNDOE? Commissioner Huffman?

It’s well known at this point that we don’t always see eye-to-eye.

However, we both recognize the absolute necessity of having a professional working relationship that supports improving student achievement at the local level and state level. It’s important that we have an honest dialogue in those areas where we may disagree.

8) What would you like to see as the state’s top education priority?

This is a difficult question because there are so many top priorities, as far as I’m concerned: recruiting and retaining great teachers, developing great school leaders, implementing common core, adequately preparing for PARCC testing.

But if I had to zero in one just one, it has to be funding universal pre-K. We serve a very large population of economically disadvantaged children, many of them also English learners. They must be given a jump-start on kindergarten so they are ready to start school. We generally have about 1,500-2,000 applications for pre-K every year that we can’t accommodate.

9) Dr. Register, you were quoted in the Tennessean that the district was not able to give step increases because of the rising cost of charters. Do you believe the district is reaching a tipping point in regard to charter school costs?

We need to have a conversation about the fiscal impact of charter schools. The Board of Education has already begun the budget planning process for 2014-15 because the members are concerned about the fiscal effect of charter schools on the district as a whole. Funding follows students, but fixed costs do not. The district continues to experience enrollment growth overall, so we have the same infrastructure and some increases in variable costs for teachers, transportation and other budget items, but when the transfer to charter schools is taken into account, our funding was flat this year and may even be reduced next year.

At the same time, we are moving ahead with the RFP for additional charter schools. Going forward, we might ask charter school applicants to meet specific needs. For example, a charter school in southeast Nashville could help address the tremendous growth in that area.

10) I recently toured Cameron College Prep. It was very fascinating to see a charter school slowly take over a zoned school grade by grade. Is the district looking to replicate this in other zoned schools?

We are also doing this at Brick Church Middle/Brick Church College Prep, though that is through the Achievement School District. Without our partnership with LEAD Academy through the Office of Innovation, Cameron might have also been in the ASD. We do not have any other charter school conversions on the table now.

We reported last week on Roane County’s School Board passing a resolution urging Gov. Haslam and the State Department of Education to slow down the pace of education reform, collaborate more with district leaders, and provide adequate funding to move schools forward.

As I understand it, the Roane County School Board recently passed the resolution below. Basically, it says they like education reform in general, but that it is going too fast and the money coming to the district is not keeping pace with the mandates of reform. It’s frustrating teachers and creating a negative climate.

I’m wondering if more districts will pass similar resolutions ahead of the 2014 session of the General Assembly.

Here’s the Resolution:

RESOLUTION

Whereas, the Roane County Board of Education recognizes Governor Bill Haslam’s commitment to education and appreciates additional funds provided by the state and the efforts to raise the academic standards for our students, and

Whereas, the Roane County Board of Education strives to provide a quality education for every student of the county,

Whereas, Roane County’s teachers are diligent, motivated and capable, and

Whereas, teachers and administrators are frustrated by the time restraints placed upon them to implement mandated programs, and

Whereas, required additional funding is not provided for such mandated programs, and

Whereas, the system’s leaders welcome open dialogue with those on the local and state level concerning issues that impact education, and

Whereas, the concerns of the educators and system administrators are not being heard by the Commissioner of the State Department of Education.

Therefore, be it resolved that the Roane County Board of Education, on behalf of students, parents, teachers and administrators, ask the Governor and the General Assembly to address the disconnect that currently exists with the State Department of Education.

If you happen to be a young, hip, TFA-type teacher. Non-TFA types not allowed. The video says it’s an ASD event and the video clips appear to have been filmed inside classrooms. It’s not clear who is paying for the event or why only TFA teachers are invited to attend.

Edit: ASD took down the video, but some nice people have added it to Youtube.